Press Club

For all the literature classes you skipped in college because you were too hungover, here’s your chance to make it up. Get edumacated while eating crepes, drinking wine, and reading eclectic magazines you’d subscribe to yourself if only you were that intellectual—in one of Portland’s hippest and most relaxing wine bar cafes, located right in the heart of one of the city’s funkiest little neighborhoods.

If you aren’t feeling social, read a magazine, the cafe has almost 100 periodicals for your browsing pleasure, so you can pick up a Paris Review, Gastronomica, Wallpaper, or Believer and get a dose of culture with your glass of Grüner Veltliner and Henry Miller (proscuitto, mushrooms, and mozzarella crepe).

The Press Club resides inside what looks like an old garage along SE Clinton Street, with cement floors, peach colored walls hung with local art, a smattering of outdoor tables to relax at and catch the sun, and a tiny little bar in back where regulars hang out and chat with the staff on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Have your Tobias Wolff and eat it too–the acclaimed author is immortalized here in a delicious crepe filled with mushrooms sauteed with shallots and mozzarella, as are many of his literary brethren–the Ernest Hemingway sandwich pairs roasted turkey with walnut pesto, roasted red peppers and provolone on a fresh baguette.The wine list is excellent, and always features a $5 glass of the house red or white, a good choice for the starving novelist. The lemon water and paper napkins to scribble your brilliant thoughts on are free.

If you aren’t feeling social, read a magazine, the cafe has almost 100 periodicals on the wall at any given time that are for sale and/or your browsing pleasure, so you can pick up a Paris Review, Gastronomica, Wallpaper, or Believer and get a dose of culture with your glass of Grüner Veltliner and Henry Miller (proscuitto, mushrooms, and mozzarella crepe).

Or just slip a Real Simple or Motorcycle Magazine inside a copy of Utne and pretend you’re cultured for the benefit of the cute professorial type sitting with his/her laptop across the room.

Details

Cuisine: Crepes

Atmosphere: Artsy little neighborhood cafe with a relaxed vibe and a ton of great magazines.

Outdoor seating: Several tables are set up on the sidewalk outside in fair weather

Best Seat: All inside tables are great, although I love sitting outside at a sidewalk table